Books, binding

I forgot last week (but remembered today, since Mondays and Thursdays are my ride-the-bus-and-seriously-catch-up-on-reading days) to mention the third ball in my literary juggling act, where I’m currently in Beach Books on a Bus mode (ball one) but also trying to save some choice beach books for the actual beach vacation coming up in a little over two weeks (ball two). Completing the trifecta is my tendency to pick up books which I want to read but I consider too serious, weighty or scholarly to qualify for BBB or the OBX. So not only am I overthinking the divvying up of the light and outdoor-friendly reading I have on hand and the acquisition of more to last me through summer’s end, but I’m also actively acquiring volumes which specifically need to be set aside until a later date.

And maybe the existence of those class 3 books was already implied, but I just wanted to take a moment to highlight my obsessive attention to everything-in-its-place (oh THAT’s where the little guy gets it!) and note that I am, as of this summer, 14 years out of college.

Excuse me a moment … AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


Yes, 14 years out of college (which means in a mere three years I will have been out of school longer than I was ever in, including kindergarten) and yet September is always the Back To School month in my mind. No, this is not a backhanded introduction to a twelve-part series of blog posts on What Each Month Means To Me (because honestly quite a few tend to blend together, I’m looking at you, Marprilay) but the persistence of what September signifies to me is remarkable. And to the point at hand, that means not only do I tend to go for the frothiest, genre-ghettotastic-est books possible during the hot-n-hazy days and deliberately hoard other books for the autumn and winter, but it really means that when September comes I specifically enjoy the feeling of abruptly shifting into a completely different book-consumption gear altogether. It’s not enough to go from sword-and-sorcery larks in August to a contemplative modern novel or a spot of pop science after Labor Day. I crave something that feels like homework, a neglected Western Canon Classic or something gruelingly po-mo. So there’s not simply beach books and non-beach books in the Dewey Decimal System of my mind, but beach books for the commute and beach books for the real beach and non-beach books for any old time and non-beach books specifically to ameliorate my wistful longings for academia at the approach of the equinox.

Seriously, I should have majored in something a little simpler, like tax accounting.